Pass

City Council decided to exclude the John and Harrison Street neighborhoods from a proposed enterprise zone.

These neighborhoods are sacred to the city’s identity. These streets are meaningful to the people who live or have lived in the area. The areas are composed of a mixture of homeowners, college students renting apartments and people who stroll through the area on quiet days.

Turning the area into a zone for businesses would not be beneficial to NIU or the city. These places have too much intrinsic value for replacement.

Before Monday’s City Council decision, many residents were concerned about these proposed changes. Some property owners placed signs in the front lawns in these areas that read “Save our homes,” hoping to change the City Council’s mind about the enterprise zone.

The city’s image would’ve been hurt with unnecessary redevelopments and DeKalb would’ve lost some of the most beautiful houses in the city.

The City Council has yet to decide if it will exclude the Ellwood Historic District from the enterprise zone.

For now, the City Council has made the correct decision by excluding the John and Harrison Street areas.

Fail

The first week of November is going to start off colder for some parts of NIU than others.

Starting on Sunday and ending around Nov. 14, NIU will have a steam outage in seven buildings and in the tunnels between the East Heating Plant to the buildings.

The temperatures in Davis, Faraday, LaTourette Lowden, Montgomery and Psychology/Computer Science halls and Founders Memorial Library are expected to be at least 64 degrees.

The repairs are tentatively scheduled and don’t have a final complete date. Students might have to play it by ear and wait after Nov. 14 to have heat returned.

Students are advised to wear extra clothes when in these buildings during the scheduled maintenance time.

Even though there’s probably not going to be a blizzard this time of the year, many students will experience the cold sooner than others.

Additionally, these buildings won’t have access to hot water in the bathrooms.

NIU has said it will loan out space heaters to be placed in requested rooms to warm people.

I hope these emergency repairs to the east tunnel system strengthen the conditions of these buildings in case there’s another strong winter ahead for northern Illinios.